i deeply affected i leave the city with its new born monsters. we had from baghdad on the banks of the tigris. to. baghdad can be translated as the garden of peace. but it's a better fragile peace the patrols or iraqi wearing uniforms supplied by the us the army is divided by political religious and tribal conflicts everyone fights for his own camp. the president is kurd the prime minister shia and the parliament is run by sunnis. in paradise square opposite the royal mosque stands

a concrete pedestal. here once through the absolute symbol of power a statue of saddam hussein. on april ninth two thousand and three it was torn to the ground of the united states believed it of wonderful. nine years have passed the square is empty and the city appears to be in a state of siege. oh is that our passenger alley a theater director back from exile in paris waited for a long time to see his enemy fall and return to his native city. where i was thrown in prison and when i got out i was given five days to leave baghdad and iraq get me there. but folly the combat continues. i do

through theater that he hopes to when it is methodist to reinvest the public with a sense of resistance and a taste for life. i know that out. right today i see a country filled with weapons the overriding color in the city is khaki the color of soldiers. i see young people with no future men and women deprived of any feeling of citizenship the grown people have forgotten their rights and their duties. as if they were lost but i completely lost. not. more time to be doing your shoulder but more than that. in baghdad no one knows who the enemy is anymore sunni's shias islamists christians each with their armies a militia each fighting the other. side i don't know i know some of your guys who joined al qaeda just to get some money. so out of the car then the model

of several al qaeda gives them money whereas the government abandons them by the thumping of laws. that paid to kill here on their floor so close. the show but so they've ruined their futures that lives and their families find out . my for nothing goes. on oct thirty first twenty ten a terrorist group claiming all kind of affiliation occupied the catholic cathedral in baghdad. five suicide bombers activated their explosive belts fifty eight people were killed.

in nine years of occupation of civil and religious wars and attacks of caused more than one hundred ten thousand victims essentially civilian. syriac khaldiyeh an orthodox and armenian churches have become choice targets. to assassins and sunni and shia fanatics agree on nothing except on evicting the christians they accuse of being western crusaders. baghdad is a raising it illustrates christian past. checkpoints abound every hundred meters crossing baghdad is a permanent obstacle course. but i think iraq is a battlefield for a ray of foreign forces. iran supports the shia brothers while saudi arabia age

there's the sunnis. for the month i live in. a sunny district. in two thousand and six i was all for. he was addicted to rockets at least fifty rockets falling on us every day it never stopped. you know me the streets were filled with corpses and there was fighting everywhere to show. you know their ideas of a new the battles raged for seventy two hours you know. al-qaeda the army the militia everyone was fighting men. abandoned bodies became prey fit to be devoured by stray dogs that my little girl saw dogs eating the dead which i had never seen before in my life packet which is what me ritual for just. living in baghdad means surviving attacks but it's also an everyday battle. in the capital of

the world's third biggest oil producer the electricity system works for just a few hours a day. the best business in child is selling generators. for khaled my driver a visit to the barber after ten days on the road should be a moment to relax a moment of peace but nothing is that simple. yes quite simply hell here sheer hell. it's not a normal life like other people have around the world. may god act to improve things so what do you say to the good of will know for sure god is good. having. been.

a school teacher she's invited us to. get out of twenty years of war how do you go through it as a woman. i grew up in email on your head and how first the war with iran and then the embargo and the two american intervention i sound. a little but my first in one thousand nine hundred and the second in two thousand and three. for the iran war my brother was arrested and there was just my dad to take care of the family all those girls had no work my father ran a small business. we barely grown up when the embargo strangled the whole country can you imagine no fruit or vegetables meat we couldn't afford and fish even more so. it's only today that. yes but we lived in safety the women could move about

without any problem we had peace but in poverty i think that. that's really fun i want. to. come up with this sort of one of my wife is devout but as we have guests i can drink we may be poor but we still have a sense of hospitality. abdu and zara a sunni and a shia for the rest couple today war and religion have also imposed by hundreds on love. as the lights go out once again the neighborhoods back up generators take over as you mentioned that you. none not one thing that we were hearing. on shia my husband a sunni muslim had now after the war the two religions can't intermarry anymore

that at the end of it that's when it wasn't the case before and what was important was that people loved each other and what's the distinction between shia and sunni of sydney it's shameful treating people this way in iraq with all muslims there was . so much a muslim man asks for the hand of a muslim woman according to islamic tradition by fear and that's all but i think how it was at the end of the war that this division appears shia sunni. but yet now we've come to threats was headed how does a sunni there nary a shiite is that we're seeing as we look at this what if the alternative is to get divorced or die you know if you don't agree to get divorced you risk death you could think you're going to have a ship next in our neighborhood they shot a woman in front of her husband and children for the unique reason she was shia and he was sunni said that you know she.

this morning i'm not just leaving baghdad i'm fleeing baghdad. but the city gates the soldier who checks out passports tells us yet another attack a scar to the capital. another checkpoint on the road to babylon we present our passports and passes. a country apprehensive. this guy is like twilight i feel like i'm wandering in the kingdom of the dead it's raining sand. prayers of punctuated each day on the road i sleep while he converses with his god .

amidst the wind blown sound appears the mythical city of babylon. in his delusions of grandeur saddam hussein emerged himself to be its king the heir to the throne the president of the iraqi republic saddam hussein in one thousand eight hundred eight inaugurated the restored city of babylon first built by nebuchadnezzar between six o four and five sixty two b.c. . at the height of his power like the ancient kings before him. built his palace in the heart of the legendary city. his tower of babel crashed down around him and the dust of pride and ambition. his memory has been left to the ravages of time and the insults of his survivors.

wealthy british style. markets why now. can't. find out what's really happening to the global economy with mike's cancer for a no holds barred look at the global financial headlines tune into kaiser report on r g. they've been living this way since the seventeenth century. their rituals are strict. there communities on the selected. the clearly missed english between their own and the alien. and guard their family in thing is

a treasure. mission free accreditation free transport charges free. range and free risk free. to tide free. download free broadcast quality video for your media projects a free video dog harty dot com. at the end of the road lies the mecca vatican and medina of the shia world. but on the other al qaeda is the real enemy of iraq and even of all the arab regions i don't believe several terrorist organizations have been exported by neighboring countries. they are responsible for so many victims since baghdad fell

. and i would stress that most of the attacks have targeted the shia community the . pilgrims are well protected here all the offices and soldiers are shia. several million faithful including many from iran come every year to visit the mosques in karbala a boon for the holy city. religion is a river of gold as the saying goes but we don't know what it's obvious that when a country's native sons defend it things go better than when they're always better than an occupier. and invader always has trouble understanding the country they occupy and as the air proverb says no one knows the roads. mecca better than its own inhabitants that shout it if i have it.

this is. the main prayer takes place and he's saying most. the him i'm sermons have a political resonance and a broadcast throughout iraq in the shia world and. the shias today are imposing their numbers and their power. in the prayers always end with cries to the glory of the prophet hussein the son of ali allegedly designated by mohammed to be his only successor you know that there. was. many on under saddam a million years were detained and many of them were assassinated and thrown into mass graves and not much of a center i myself your servant spent twelve years in iraq e.j. lots of my family only received news of me one or two years after i was released. i

was even afraid of my own brother i thought he was an officer who come to interrogate me yes we suffered and the prisons were filled with shias only when they be. leaving kabbalah is like crossing a graveyard. everywhere all portraits of she amount has fallen for the glory of the prophet hussein mohammed there. getting any. possible. from. the baghdad bass run highway

in the middle of the desert our faithful taxi finally gives up the ghost. i feel suddenly vulnerable alone in the wilderness. as if by magic a man appears from the sands to help us out perhaps this is the renowned desert hospitality. we had for a camp for the man who maintained the highway once they were all soldiers and saddam's army. when the americans came many deserted. them without knowing who we are to make room for us to share that.

with out of the massive take iraqi army was hunger thirst and fatigue. a member of your family was taken hostage because she deserves it. you horrible in the days when they called people who ran away they were simply hang on. one of you i spent seven years in the army and it was very tough. in santa maria days a soldier was paid two thousand dinars less than the bank he was carrying was worth we can definitely say we were really miserable. the highway splits the desert and on each side of the road to bask in the vast oil fields of rumaylah. more than half of iraqi production is pumped from this burning desert a treasure chest within the sand. shale b.p.

exxon mobil and the chinese cineplex of already got their hands on the bulk of it. at last we reach best from the euphrates and the tigris meet. travellers once called the city of venice of the south. who comes to kill us and destroy our country and good if all we said that the americans and the americans are gone and now my general so who else is continuing the job market that nobody knows of there's no work in the situation is unlivable i say yes it was better before. conversely if we talk about security and civic respect we can say it was a hundred percent better under saddam. today there's no respect for the citizens

and as if we were no longer men that's the truth that's honestly what i feel. we are less and less respected before an iraqi could walk by this head held high anywhere in the world and especially at home as long as the state was not affected or undermined things have changed a lot i can tell you that the situation was much better before. the venice of the self was awash with detritus of all kinds half of the inhabitants are unemployed it's a humanitarian and social disaster area. here we have absolutely nothing. where we going but at that event in this oil rich country we can't find work there this is how we live the children of this country why is it fair does god accept this master is in the middle of all the country's oil wealth it's like the mother of oil but he doesn't seem to gain from it that the

inhabitants are poor and the streets are filled with the unemployed and it. was once one of the richest cities in iraq today it seems to have been forgotten by both god and mankind because of oil is cruel indeed. and yet in the heart of the shantytowns is always given freely. and sweet offering . by our government isn't he in my pocket i think government doesn't take care of the poor and is only there to save itself until it sound pockets i do expect things to change what. i have no minister has taken the trouble to come and see us to ask how

we survive or ask us if we. need and i think we have nobody to talk to. and so since the americans left the poor in the powerless join the militia and the terrorist groups who would least provide money and protection. everywhere in the city are portraits of the she might i doubt saddam is radical troops feed on poverty. the road ends at our files on the banks of the push and gulf the end of our journey .

this is the outback oil terminal rising from the water far from terrorist attacks and on a constant military surveillance where iraq's fortune oil flows in and out. the country's fortune and perhaps misfortune two. wars here have always been closed in the same color black. and foul was at the mouth of the shuttle our best touring with the tigris joins the euphrates forming the border with a ramp. on the iranian bank a gigantic portrait of the m.m. how many is there to talk to us a reminder that americans have gone leaving pandora's box wide open. been especially on me personally i never thought i know collaborated with the americans. which are what i work i am and always have been

a taxi driving us. i cross the country no. to south legend from south dakota and follow all taxi i go wherever i can find work and i don't hesitate god be praised all i want to still live my. twenty days on the road perhaps one hundred checkpoints. with my friend khaled we've crossed a country which is officially no longer at war but where peace is not being restored a country divided by sectarian shia sunni and kurd communities a country where tara is a daily issue. from

the hoa they'll be able so the manja kook muscle to create for. baghdad babilonia karbala as far as i'll file we've traveled a road where danger is ever present. khaled was under the protection of his god and me maps of providence.

in his secret laboratory jim mccurry was able to build a most sophisticated robot which all unfortunately doesn't give a darn about anything tim's mission to teach the creation of life should care about humans and worry that this is why you should care only on the dog call. to speak or language. programs and documentaries in arabic it's all here on. reporting from the world's hot spots the v.o.i.p. interviews for intriguing stories for you to. try. to find out more visit our big dog called her.

her . i.

don't. think. so.